Stephen Anderson

Hi, I’m Mike. I’m at Windy City Rails again. I’m standing here with Steven Anderson who runs the Mad Railers and he’s involved with the Madison Ruby up in Madison, Wisconsin. So thank you for taking a few minutes to talk with me. Can you tell me a little bit about what Mad Railers is and what you’re doing up in Madison? Well Mad Railers, a friend and I started that in early 2006 right after we did the first agile web development with Rails book in a book club. And he went on to start teaching Rails at the Tech College and he and I launched the users group. And I inherited the user group from him a few years later. I’m still involved in running it. Many other people help run it as well. And it’s really blossomed lately. We typically have about 20 people at a meeting and we have a wide range of things we do. The next couple will be focused, the next one will be introduction for newbies, kind of introduction to Rails. And the one after that we’re going to split in two. We’re going to do Coens and Katas. Okay, so more of a hands-on and then also more of a lecture? We’ve traditionally been kind of oriented towards having people talk on a subject. But I’m personally trying to move us towards more doing and I’m going to resurrect open hack days again. And other people in Mad Railers who want to host hack evenings are welcome to do the same. I like to do the days just because a full day lets you bite off Meteorite. Yeah, and when I talked to Jim Remsick yesterday, he kind of described that Madison has a very interesting culture. And has that something that, like with the Madison Ruby, tries to make sure that it really incorporates the local flavor of Madison into the conference. Is that something that’s affected how you work with Mad Railers, that it has, Madison has its own unique culture? It certainly does. We don’t talk about it much at Mad Railers. Because you’re all in Madison, so the fish doesn’t talk about the sea. Right, right. But as Jim and Jen are running a Madison Ruby conference, they’re very focused on that and exposing technologists from around the nation and the world to aspects that are wonderful about Madison. And the Madisonites who participate in the conference love it as well. Because it opens our eyes to things that we hadn’t been thinking about. Yeah, just something that’s maybe kind of hidden in plain view. You see it all the time, but come in and everybody kind of has fresh eyes. The other thing that’s really awesome about the conferences that Jim runs is the way they bring in master crafts people in other crafts. People who are not Ruby on Rails are not, you know, not programmers or designers, but come and talk to us about their craft and their passion. Yeah. And it seems like the favorite talks are generally not about Ruby on Rails. Yeah, yeah, it’s something that’s a little bit unique. Yes. But kind of jumping back to the hands-on, you said you like to do them during the hands-on sessions. You like to do them during the day versus the night. How do you work that with people’s schedules? I mean, most of the times we do user groups at night because that’s when people are off work. Well, what I do is I just kind of say, “Hey, I’ve got the energy to spend a Saturday and to host an open hack day.” Oh, so on a weekend day. I post it, and anyone and everyone who can make it is welcome to join. But it’s not on a Wednesday. It’s on a, generally, a weekend. It’s generally on a weekend, and it’s something above and beyond the regular meetings. And another idea that I want to do is, I want to have a workshop. I want to have a workshop where I can talk to people. I want to talk to people. I want to pitch to the user group. It’s something we did at Bendyworks, our software company. We did an internal conference, and we’re about to do our second. And there’s a really great dynamic in having, you know, amongst friends, by and for friends. It’s a very low-pressure introduction for speaking to many people. Yeah. Early Geek Fest was, yeah. And I want to pitch that to the group. I think that would be pretty wonderful, imagining along the lines of a bar camp. Yeah. Yeah, those are a lot of fun. Low pressure, safe environments. I mean, that’s probably one of the best things, I think, about user groups is they generally provide, once you’ve kind of established a presence in the group, it’s a little bit safer, and you don’t feel that, like, coming to a conference and having to stand up in front of 100-plus strangers. A dozen or so people that you know seems to be much softer and can lead to bigger and better things. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, just real quick, we kind of mentioned before when we were chatting about Bendyworks having kind of an interesting relationship with other, what might be other competitors. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you showed me how your laptop has stickers from a half dozen companies that might otherwise be called competitors if you were maybe vying for the same market or – Well, it’s part of the joy in what we do. We’re participants in a community that’s so, so friendly and so supportive. And we’re experiencing, you know, a market with enough demand that, frankly, most of the time, our problems are along the lines of, “Who can I trust to refer a client I can’t help right now to rather than, ‘Oh, I have to, you know, scratch and claw to land the next gig?’” Right. That’s a pretty wonderful spot to be in. And it’s so much fun to talk to other people who are running shops like ours and swap stories. Yeah. And has that been something that, you know, that you’re a consulting firm, that you’re involved with the community, has that ever been something where you’ve – have you ever hired somebody out of – that you’ve met just through the user group? Oh, yeah. The – well, Bendyworks itself sprung into existence as a side effect of, you know, supporting the user group, amongst other dynamics. But, yeah, I started helping the user group and doing things and talking about Ruby on Rails and teaching Ruby on Rails without ever thinking it would become a company. Oh, well, yeah, that’s an interesting way to go about it. And also, it’s been our main source of employees, that every – you know, support the community. Right. Help people grow skills. And every – you know, we’ve been doing this for a long time. We’ve been doing this for a long time, and we’ve been helping people grow skills. And every now and then, somebody really stands out that it excites us, that we want them to be part of our group. That’s very interesting. So it’s a very synergistic ecosystem that you build the group, you build a framework for people to be able to come in and safe and have fun and share and learn and grow, and then you’re growing, and then you start your own company, and then you’re able to help these people come up, you know, and they’re all having a good time. So, you know, the worst case is they come out and they have a good time and they learn something new. The best case is, yeah, they come and they join Bendyworks. Yeah. But there’s other outcomes, too. Like, I really enjoy helping somebody who might become a Bendyworker and see them join a different, interesting company. And Rails has really blossomed in Madison. Yeah. There are so many shops doing Rails now, where, when we started, it was kind of like, “What?” Yeah, yeah. “What’s this thing you’re talking about?” Yeah, it’s, like, caught on a little bit more into the mainstream. Yes. Well, thank you very much, Stephen, for taking the time to speak.